WorldNetDaily Exclusive

Muslims in fed terror probe making donations to Obama

Will candidate follow other Dems who gave back jihad-tied funds?

Published: 08/29/2008 at 1:00 AM

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Jamal M. Barzinji

Islamic leaders tied by federal investigators to the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America – including one under active investigation for alleged terror-financing – have recently donated to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign for president, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by WND.

Jamal M. Barzinji earlier this year gave Obama $1,000, a gift that records show has not been returned. Other Democratic candidates, including Rep. Jim Moran, have refunded donations from Barzinji since federal agents raided his Virginia home and offices in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Obama’s top Muslim adviser resigned earlier this month over controversy surrounding his ties to an alleged Muslim Brotherhood front connected to Barzinji, who heads a network of Islamic charities and businesses.

Barzinji remains at the center of an active federal investigation into terrorist financing that involves recently convicted terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian. A grand jury is still hearing the widening case in Northern Virginia.

A federal court affidavit alleges “Barzinji is not only closely associated with PIJ (as evidenced by ties to al-Arian, including documents seized in Tampa), but also with Hamas.” The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or PIJ, and Hamas are two known terrorist groups outlawed by the U.S.

Barzinji in November 2000 was arrested and charged with domestic abuse and resisting arrest, according to Fairfax County Police Department criminal records.

Nancy Luque, a Washington-based lawyer for Barzinji, says her client does not support terrorism and that the government is conducting a witch hunt. Barzinji has not been charged with a crime in the years-long probe.

According to recently declassified FBI documents posted by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Barzinji and another board member of an Islamist think tank in Herndon, Va., were listed among “members and leaders of the IKHWAN.”

The Ikhwan is an Arabic reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, which follows the credo: “The Quran is our constitution, the prophet is our guide; Death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition.”

U.S. prosecutors recently declassified an internal Ikhwan document outlining a long-term plan to infiltrate U.S. institutions and Islamize America.

Barzinji has met in the U.S. with key leaders of the Egyptian-based Brotherhood, but he told the Washington Post in 2004 that he and his colleagues abandoned links to them years ago. He said he helped persuade the Brothers to participate in elections as an alternative to armed struggle.

Barzinji noted, “It was one of our main contributions to the Ikhwan movement worldwide.”

Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia was forced to return $3,750 in donations from Barzinji in 2002 after the donations were revealed in the press.

Barzinji donated $1,000 to Obama on Feb. 6 of this year – one day after his colleague Omer Totonji also donated $1,000 to his campaign. Totonji’s father, Ahmad Totonji, also is a subject of the federal investigation. His Herndon, Va., home and offices were raided by agents after 9/11.

That same month, Omar Barzinji of Sterling, Va., contributed $500 to Obama’s campaign. He works for Islamist publisher Amana Limited, whose offices also were searched after 9/11.

The Obama campaign, which did not return calls, was rocked earlier this month when its top Muslim adviser, Mazen Asbahi, had to step down over a firestorm surrounding his ties to an alleged Muslim Brotherhood front connected to Jamal Barzinji.

Asbahi, a Chicago lawyer, served on the board of an Illinois-based subsidiary to the North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT, recently named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major Hamas terror-financing case.

Barzinji was the former secretary of Saudi-funded NAIT, which controls hundreds of radical mosques in the U.S., including the Washington-area mosque connected to at least two of the 9/11 hijackers.

In fact, Barzinji’s signature appears on the property deed to that mosque, the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, according to Paul Sperry, author of “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.” Dar al-Hijrah is run by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barzinji is listed in FEC records as a “board member” of the Islamic Society of North America, a sister organization to NAIT and also an unindicted terror co-conspirator.

Esam Omeish

Also, Dar al-Hijrah trustee Esam Omeish gave $250 to Obama the same month as Barzinji.

Omeish was forced to resign his government-appointed position to the Virginia Commssion of Immigration after a video surfaced showing him advocating violent jihad. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat on Obama’s short list for running mate, had named Omeish to the panel.

Omeish is president of the Alexandria, Va.-based Muslim American Society, which was founded by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood and is the representative of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., according to recent testimony and evidence provided by FBI agent Lara Burns in the terror trial of the Holy Land Foundation.

According to Sperry in the book “Infiltration,” Omeish in 2004 used his home to bond out a terrorist suspect jailed for allegedly casing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.